Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

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sky was red over the elms behind which the Hall stood, and themansion was on fire. Sir G. Wapshot and Sir H. Fuddlestone, oldfriends of the house, wouldn't sit on the bench with Sir Pitt atQuarter Sessions, and cut him dead in the High Street ofSouthampton, where the reprobate stood offering his dirty old handsto them. Nothing had any effect upon him; he put his hands into hispockets, and burst out laughing, as he scrambled into his carriageand four; he used to burst out laughing at Lady Southdown's tracts;and he laughed at his sons, and at the world, and at the Ribbonswhen she was angry, which was not seldom.

Miss Horrocks was installed as housekeeper at Queen's Crawley, andruled all the domestics there with great majesty and rigour. Allthe servants were instructed to address her as "Mum," or "Madam"--and there was one little maid, on her promotion, who persisted incalling her "My Lady," without any rebuke on the part of thehousekeeper. "There has been better ladies, and there has beenworser, Hester," was Miss Horrocks' reply to this compliment of herinferior; so she ruled, having supreme power over all except herfather, whom, however, she treated with considerable haughtiness,warning him not to be too familiar in his behaviour to one "as wasto be a Baronet's lady." Indeed, she rehearsed that exalted part inlife with great satisfaction to herself, and to the amusement of oldSir Pitt, who chuckled at her airs and graces, and would laugh bythe hour together at her assumptions of dignity and imitations ofgenteel life. He swore it was as good as a play to see her in thecharacter of a fine dame, and he made her put on one of the firstLady Crawley's court-dresses, swearing (entirely to Miss Horrocks'own concurrence) that the dress became her prodigiously, andthreatening to drive her off that very instant to Court in a coach-and-four. She had the ransacking of the wardrobes of the twodefunct ladies, and cut and hacked their posthumous finery so as tosuit her own tastes and figure. And she would have liked to takepossession of their jewels and trinkets too; but the old Baronet hadlocked them away in his private cabinet; nor could she coax orwheedle him out of the keys. And it is a fact, that some time aftershe left Queen's Crawley a copy-book belonging to this lady wasdiscovered, which showed that she had taken great pains in privateto learn the art of writing in general, and especially of writingher own name as Lady Crawley, Lady Betsy Horrocks, Lady ElizabethCrawley, &c.

Though the good people of the Parsonage never went to the Hall andshunned the horrid old dotard its owner, yet they kept a strictknowledge of all that happened there, and were looking out every dayfor the catastrophe for which Miss Horrocks was also eager. ButFate intervened enviously and prevented her from receiving thereward due to such immaculate love and virtue.

One day the Baronet surprised "her ladyship," as he jocularly calledher, seated at that old and tuneless piano in the drawing-room,which had scarcely been touched since Becky Sharp played quadrillesupon it--seated at the piano with the utmost gravity and squallingto the best of her power in imitation of the music which she hadsometimes heard. The little kitchen-maid on her promotion wasstanding at her mistress's side, quite delighted during theoperation, and wagging her head up and down and crying, "Lor, Mum,'tis bittiful"--just like a genteel sycophant in a real drawing-room.

This incident made the old Baronet roar with laughter, as usual. Henarrated the circumstance a dozen times to Horrocks in the course ofthe evening, and greatly to the discomfiture of Miss Horrocks. Hethrummed on the table as if it had been a musical instrument, andsqualled in imitation of her manner of singing. He vowed that sucha beautiful voice ought to be cultivated and declared she ought tohave singing-masters, in which proposals she saw nothing ridiculous.He was in great spirits that night, and drank with his friend andbutler an extraordinary quantity of rum-and-water--at a very latehour the faithful friend and domestic conducted his master to hisbedroom.

Half an hour afterwards there was a great hurry and bustle in thehouse. Lights went about from window to window in the lonelydesolate old Hall, whereof but two or three rooms were ordinarilyoccupied by its owner. Presently, a boy on a pony went galloping offto Mudbury, to the Doctor's house there. And in another hour (bywhich fact we ascertain how carefully the excellent Mrs. ButeCrawley had always kept up an understanding with the great house),that lady in her clogs and calash, the Reverend Bute Crawley, andJames Crawley, her son, had walked over from the Rectory through thepark, and had entered the mansion by the open hall-door.

They passed through the hall and the small oak parlour, on the tableof which stood the three tumblers and the empty rum-bottle which hadserved for Sir Pitt's carouse, and through that apartment into SirPitt's study, where they found Miss Horrocks, of the guilty ribbons,with a wild air, trying at the presses and escritoires with a bunchof keys. She dropped them with a scream of terror, as little Mrs.Bute's eyes flashed out at her from under her black calash.

"Gave them you, you abandoned creature!" screamed Mrs. Bute. "Bearwitness, Mr. Crawley, we found this good-for-nothing woman in theact of stealing your brother's property; and she will be hanged, asI always said she would."

Betsy Horrocks, quite daunted, flung herself down on her knees,bursting into tears. But those who know a really good woman areaware that she is not in a hurry to forgive, and that thehumiliation of an enemy is a triumph to her soul.

"Ring the bell, James," Mrs. Bute said. "Go on ringing it till thepeople come." The three or four domestics resident in the desertedold house came presently at that jangling and continued summons.

"Put that woman in the strong-room," she said. "We caught her inthe act of robbing Sir Pitt. Mr. Crawley, you'll make out hercommittal--and, Beddoes, you'll drive her over in the spring cart,in the morning, to Southampton Gaol."

"My dear," interposed the Magistrate and Rector--"she's only--"

"Are there no handcuffs?" Mrs. Bute continued, stamping in herclogs. "There used to be handcuffs. Where's the creature'sabominable father?"

"He DID give 'em me," still cried poor Betsy; "didn't he, Hester?You saw Sir Pitt--you know you did--give 'em me, ever so long ago--the day after Mudbury fair: not that I want 'em. Take 'em if youthink they ain't mine." And here the unhappy wretch pulled out fromher pocket a large pair of paste shoe-buckles which had excited heradmiration, and which she had just appropriated out of one of thebookcases in the study, where they had lain.

"Law, Betsy, how could you go for to tell such a wicked story!" saidHester, the little kitchen-maid late on her promotion--"and toMadame Crawley, so good and kind, and his Rev'rince (with acurtsey), and you may search all MY boxes, Mum, I'm sure, and here'smy keys as I'm an honest girl, though of pore parents and workhousebred--and if you find so much as a beggarly bit of lace or a silkstocking out of all the gownds as YOU'VE had the picking of, may Inever go to church agin."

"Give up your keys, you hardened hussy," hissed out the virtuouslittle lady in the calash.

"And here's a candle, Mum, and if you please, Mum, I can show youher room, Mum, and the press in the housekeeper's room, Mum, whereshe keeps heaps and heaps of things, Mum," cried out the eagerlittle Hester with a profusion of curtseys.

"Hold your tongue, if you please. I know the room which thecreature occupies perfectly well. Mrs. Brown, have the goodness tocome with me, and Beddoes don't you lose sight of that woman," saidMrs. Bute, seizing the candle. "Mr. Crawley, you had better goupstairs and see that they are not murdering your unfortunatebrother"--and the calash, escorted by Mrs. Brown, walked away to theapartment which, as she said truly, she knew perfectly well.

Bute went upstairs and found the Doctor from Mudbury, with thefrightened Horrocks over his master in a chair. They were trying tobleed Sir Pitt Crawley.

With the early morning an express was sent off to Mr. Pitt Crawleyby the Rector's lady, who assumed the command of everything, and hadwatched the old Baronet through the night. He had been brought backto a sort of life; he could not speak, but seemed to recognizepeople. Mrs. Bute kept resolutely by his bedside. She never seemedto want to sleep, that little woman, and did not close her fieryblack eyes once, though the Doctor snored in the arm-chair.Horrocks made some wild efforts to assert his authority and assisthis master; but Mrs. Bute called him a tipsy old wretch and bade himnever show his face again in that house, or he should be transportedlike his abominable daughter.

Terrified by her manner, he slunk down to the oak parlour where Mr.James was, who, having tried the bottle standing there and found noliquor in it, ordered Mr. Horrocks to get another bottle of rum,which he fetched, with clean glasses, and to which the Rector andhis son sat down, ordering Horrocks to put down the keys at thatinstant and never to show his face again.

Cowed by this behaviour, Horrocks gave up the keys, and he and hisdaughter slunk off silently through the night and gave up possessionof the house of Queen's Crawley.

CHAPTER XL

In Which Becky Is Recognized by the Family

The heir of Crawley arrived at home, in due time, after thiscatastrophe, and henceforth may be said to have reigned in Queen'sCrawley. For though the old Baronet survived many months, he neverrecovered the use of his intellect or his speech completely, and thegovernment of the estate devolved upon his elder son. In a strangecondition Pitt found it. Sir Pitt was always buying and mortgaging;he had twenty men of business, and quarrels with each; quarrels withall his tenants, and lawsuits with them; lawsuits with the lawyers;lawsuits with the Mining and Dock Companies in which he wasproprietor; and with every person with whom he had business. Tounravel these difficulties and to set the estate clear was a taskworthy of the orderly and persevering diplomatist of Pumpernickel,and he set himself to work with prodigious assiduity. His wholefamily, of course, was transported to Queen's Crawley, whither LadySouthdown, of course, came too; and she set about converting theparish under the Rector's nose, and brought down her irregularclergy to the dismay of the angry Mrs Bute. Sir Pitt had concludedno bargain for the sale of the living of Queen's Crawley; when itshould drop, her Ladyship proposed to take the patronage into herown hands and present a young protege to the Rectory, on whichsubject the diplomatic Pitt said nothing.

Mrs. Bute's intentions with regard to Miss Betsy Horrocks were notcarried into effect, and she paid no visit to Southampton Gaol. Sheand her father left the Hall when the latter took possession of theCrawley Arms in the village, of which he had got a lease from SirPitt. The ex-butler had obtained a small freehold there likewise,which gave him a vote for the borough. The Rector had another ofthese votes, and these and four others formed the representativebody which returned the two members for Queen's Crawley.

There was a show of courtesy kept up between the Rectory and theHall ladies, between the younger ones at least, for Mrs. Bute andLady Southdown never could meet without battles, and graduallyceased seeing each other. Her Ladyship kept her room when theladies from the Rectory visited their cousins at the Hall. PerhapsMr. Pitt was not very much displeased at these occasional absencesof his mamma-in-law. He believed the Binkie family to be thegreatest and wisest and most interesting in the world, and herLadyship and his aunt had long held ascendency over him; butsometimes he felt that she commanded him too much. To be consideredyoung was complimentary, doubtless, but at six-and-forty to betreated as a boy was sometimes mortifying. Lady Jane yielded upeverything, however, to her mother. She was only fond of herchildren in private, and it was lucky for her that Lady Southdown'smultifarious business, her conferences with ministers, and hercorrespondence with all the missionaries of Africa, Asia, andAustralasia, &c., occupied the venerable Countess a great deal, sothat she had but little time to devote to her granddaughter, thelittle Matilda, and her grandson, Master Pitt Crawley. The latterwas a feeble child, and it was only by prodigious quantities ofcalomel that Lady Southdown was able to keep him in life at all.

As for Sir Pitt he retired into those very apartments where LadyCrawley had been previously extinguished, and here was tended byMiss Hester, the girl upon her promotion, with constant care andassiduity. What love, what fidelity, what constancy is there equalto that of a nurse with good wages? They smooth pillows; and makearrowroot; they get up at nights; they bear complaints andquerulousness; they see the sun shining out of doors and don't wantto go abroad; they sleep on arm-chairs and eat their meals insolitude; they pass long long evenings doing nothing, watching theembers, and the patient's drink simmering in the jug; they read theweekly paper the whole week through; and Law's Serious Call or theWhole Duty of Man suffices them for literature for the year--and wequarrel with them because, when their relations come to see themonce a week, a little gin is smuggled in in their linen basket.Ladies, what man's love is there that would stand a year's nursingof the object of his affection? Whereas a nurse will stand by youfor ten pounds a quarter, and we think her too highly paid. Atleast Mr. Crawley grumbled a good deal about paying half as much toMiss Hester for her constant attendance upon the Baronet his father.

Of sunshiny days this old gentleman was taken out in a chair on theterrace--the very chair which Miss Crawley had had at Brighton, andwhich had been transported thence with a number of Lady Southdown'seffects to Queen's Crawley. Lady Jane always walked by the old man,and was an evident favourite with him. He used to nod many times toher and smile when she came in, and utter inarticulate deprecatorymoans when she was going away. When the door shut upon her he wouldcry and sob--whereupon Hester's face and manner, which was alwaysexceedingly bland and gentle while her lady was present, wouldchange at once, and she would make faces at him and clench her fistand scream out "Hold your tongue, you stoopid old fool," and twirlaway his chair from the fire which he loved to look at--at which hewould cry more. For this was all that was left after more thanseventy years of cunning, and struggling, and drinking, andscheming, and sin and selfishness--a whimpering old idiot put in andout of bed and cleaned and fed like a baby.

At last a day came when the nurse's occupation was over. Early onemorning, as Pitt Crawley was at his steward's and bailiff's books inthe study, a knock came to the door, and Hester presented herself,dropping a curtsey, and said,

What was it that made Pitt's pale face flush quite red? Was itbecause he was Sir Pitt at last, with a seat in Parliament, andperhaps future honours in prospect? "I'll clear the estate now withthe ready money," he thought and rapidly calculated its incumbrancesand the improvements which he would make. He would not use hisaunt's money previously lest Sir Pitt should recover and his outlaybe in vain.

All the blinds were pulled down at the Hall and Rectory: the churchbell was tolled, and the chancel hung in black; and Bute Crawleydidn't go to a coursing meeting, but went and dined quietly atFuddleston, where they talked about his deceased brother and youngSir Pitt over their port. Miss Betsy, who was by this time marriedto a saddler at Mudbury, cried a good deal. The family surgeon rodeover and paid his respectful compliments, and inquiries for thehealth of their ladyships. The death was talked about at Mudburyand at the Crawley Arms, the landlord whereof had become reconciledwith the Rector of late, who was occasionally known to step into theparlour and taste Mr. Horrocks' mild beer.

"I will write, of course," Sir Pitt said, "and invite him to thefuneral: it will be but becoming."

"And--and--Mrs. Rawdon," said Lady Jane timidly.

"Jane!" said Lady Southdown, "how can you think of such a thing?"

"Mrs. Rawdon must of course be asked," said Sir Pitt, resolutely.

"Not whilst I am in the house!" said Lady Southdown.

"Your Ladyship will be pleased to recollect that I am the head ofthis family," Sir Pitt replied. "If you please, Lady Jane, you willwrite a letter to Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, requesting her presence uponthis melancholy occasion."

"Jane, I forbid you to put pen to paper!" cried the Countess.

"I believe I am the head of this family," Sir Pitt repeated; "andhowever much I may regret any circumstance which may lead to yourLadyship quitting this house, must, if you please, continue togovern it as I see fit."

Lady Southdown rose up as magnificent as Mrs. Siddons in LadyMacbeth and ordered that horses might be put to her carriage. Ifher son and daughter turned her out of their house, she would hideher sorrows somewhere in loneliness and pray for their conversion tobetter thoughts.

"We don't turn you out of our house, Mamma," said the timid LadyJane imploringly.

"You invite such company to it as no Christian lady should meet, andI will have my horses to-morrow morning."

"Have the goodness to write, Jane, under my dictation," said SirPitt, rising and throwing himself into an attitude of command, likethe portrait of a Gentleman in the Exhibition, "and begin. 'Queen'sCrawley, September 14, 1822.--My dear brother--'"

Hearing these decisive and terrible words, Lady Macbeth, who hadbeen waiting for a sign of weakness or vacillation on the part ofher son-in-law, rose and, with a scared look, left the library.Lady Jane looked up to her husband as if she would fain follow andsoothe her mamma, but Pitt forbade his wife to move.

"She won't go away," he said. "She has let her house at Brightonand has spent her last half-year's dividends. A Countess living atan inn is a ruined woman. I have been waiting long for anopportunity--to take this--this decisive step, my love; for, as youmust perceive, it is impossible that there should be two chiefs in afamily: and now, if you please, we will resume the dictation. 'Mydear brother, the melancholy intelligence which it is my duty toconvey to my family must have been long anticipated by,'" &c.

In a word, Pitt having come to his kingdom, and having by good luck,or desert rather, as he considered, assumed almost all the fortunewhich his other relatives had expected, was determined to treat hisfamily kindly and respectably and make a house of Queen's Crawleyonce more. It pleased him to think that he should be its chief. Heproposed to use the vast influence that his commanding talents andposition must speedily acquire for him in the county to get hisbrother placed and his cousins decently provided for, and perhapshad a little sting of repentance as he thought that he was theproprietor of all that they had hoped for. In the course of threeor four days' reign his bearing was changed and his plans quitefixed: he determined to rule justly and honestly, to depose LadySouthdown, and to be on the friendliest possible terms with all therelations of his blood.

So he dictated a letter to his brother Rawdon--a solemn andelaborate letter, containing the profoundest observations, couchedin the longest words, and filling with wonder the simple littlesecretary, who wrote under her husband's order. "What an oratorthis will be," thought she, "when he enters the House of Commons"(on which point, and on the tyranny of Lady Southdown, Pitt hadsometimes dropped hints to his wife in bed); "how wise and good, andwhat a genius my husband is! I fancied him a little cold; but howgood, and what a genius!"

The fact is, Pitt Crawley had got every word of the letter by heartand had studied it, with diplomatic secrecy, deeply and perfectly,long before he thought fit to communicate it to his astonished wife.

This letter, with a huge black border and seal, was accordinglydespatched by Sir Pitt Crawley to his brother the Colonel, inLondon. Rawdon Crawley was but half-pleased at the receipt of it."What's the use of going down to that stupid place?" thought he. "Ican't stand being alone with Pitt after dinner, and horses there andback will cost us twenty pound."

He carried the letter, as he did all difficulties, to Becky,upstairs in her bedroom--with her chocolate, which he always madeand took to her of a morning.

He put the tray with the breakfast and the letter on the dressing-table, before which Becky sat combing her yellow hair. She took upthe black-edged missive, and having read it, she jumped up from thechair, crying "Hurray!" and waving the note round her head.

"Hurray?" said Rawdon, wondering at the little figure capering aboutin a streaming flannel dressing-gown, with tawny locks dishevelled."He's not left us anything, Becky. I had my share when I came ofage."

"You'll never be of age, you silly old man," Becky replied. "Runout now to Madam Brunoy's, for I must have some mourning: and get acrape on your hat, and a black waistcoat--I don't think you've gotone; order it to be brought home to-morrow, so that we may be ableto start on Thursday."

"You don't mean to go?" Rawdon interposed.

"Of course I mean to go. I mean that Lady Jane shall present me atCourt next year. I mean that your brother shall give you a seat inParliament, you stupid old creature. I mean that Lord Steyne shallhave your vote and his, my dear, old silly man; and that you shallbe an Irish Secretary, or a West Indian Governor: or a Treasurer,or a Consul, or some such thing."

"Posting will cost a dooce of a lot of money," grumbled Rawdon.

"We might take Southdown's carriage, which ought to be present atthe funeral, as he is a relation of the family: but, no--I intendthat we shall go by the coach. They'll like it better. It seemsmore humble--"

"Rawdy goes, of course?" the Colonel asked.

"No such thing; why pay an extra place? He's too big to travelbodkin between you and me. Let him stay here in the nursery, andBriggs can make him a black frock. Go you, and do as I bid you.And you had best tell Sparks, your man, that old Sir Pitt is deadand that you will come in for something considerable when theaffairs are arranged. He'll tell this to Raggles, who has beenpressing for money, and it will console poor Raggles." And so Beckybegan sipping her chocolate.

When the faithful Lord Steyne arrived in the evening, he found Beckyand her companion, who was no other than our friend Briggs, busycutting, ripping, snipping, and tearing all sorts of black stuffsavailable for the melancholy occasion.

"Miss Briggs and I are plunged in grief and despondency for thedeath of our Papa," Rebecca said. "Sir Pitt Crawley is dead, mylord. We have been tearing our hair all the morning, and now we aretearing up our old clothes."

"Oh, Rebecca, how can you--" was all that Briggs could say as sheturned up her eyes.

"Oh, Rebecca, how can you--" echoed my Lord. "So that oldscoundrel's dead, is he? He might have been a Peer if he had playedhis cards better. Mr. Pitt had very nearly made him; but he rattedalways at the wrong time. What an old Silenus it was!"

"I might have been Silenus's widow," said Rebecca. "Don't youremember, Miss Briggs, how you peeped in at the door and saw old SirPitt on his knees to me?" Miss Briggs, our old friend, blushed verymuch at this reminiscence, and was glad when Lord Steyne ordered herto go downstairs and make him a cup of tea.

Briggs was the house-dog whom Rebecca had provided as guardian ofher innocence and reputation. Miss Crawley had left her a littleannuity. She would have been content to remain in the Crawleyfamily with Lady Jane, who was good to her and to everybody; butLady Southdown dismissed poor Briggs as quickly as decencypermitted; and Mr. Pitt (who thought himself much injured by theuncalled-for generosity of his deceased relative towards a lady whohad only been Miss Crawley's faithful retainer a score of years)made no objection to that exercise of the dowager's authority.Bowls and Firkin likewise received their legacies and theirdismissals, and married and set up a lodging-house, according to thecustom of their kind.

Briggs tried to live with her relations in the country, but foundthat attempt was vain after the better society to which she had beenaccustomed. Briggs's friends, small tradesmen, in a country town,quarrelled over Miss Briggs's forty pounds a year as eagerly andmore openly than Miss Crawley's kinsfolk had for that lady'sinheritance. Briggs's brother, a radical hatter and grocer, calledhis sister a purse-proud aristocrat, because she would not advance apart of her capital to stock his shop; and she would have done somost likely, but that their sister, a dissenting shoemaker's lady,at variance with the hatter and grocer, who went to another chapel,showed how their brother was on the verge of bankruptcy, and tookpossession of Briggs for a while. The dissenting shoemaker wantedMiss Briggs to send his son to college and make a gentleman of him.Between them the two families got a great portion of her privatesavings out of her, and finally she fled to London followed by theanathemas of both, and determined to seek for servitude again asinfinitely less onerous than liberty. And advertising in the papersthat a "Gentlewoman of agreeable manners, and accustomed to the bestsociety, was anxious to," &c., she took up her residence with Mr.Bowls in Half Moon Street, and waited the result of theadvertisement.

So it was that she fell in with Rebecca. Mrs. Rawdon's dashinglittle carriage and ponies was whirling down the street one day,just as Miss Briggs, fatigued, had reached Mr. Bowls's door, after aweary walk to the Times Office in the City to insert heradvertisement for the sixth time. Rebecca was driving, and at oncerecognized the gentlewoman with agreeable manners, and being aperfectly good-humoured woman, as we have seen, and having a regardfor Briggs, she pulled up the ponies at the doorsteps, gave thereins to the groom, and jumping out, had hold of both Briggs'shands, before she of the agreeable manners had recovered from theshock of seeing an old friend.

Briggs cried, and Becky laughed a great deal and kissed thegentlewoman as soon as they got into the passage; and thence intoMrs. Bowls's front parlour, with the red moreen curtains, and theround looking-glass, with the chained eagle above, gazing upon theback of the ticket in the window which announced "Apartments toLet."

Briggs told all her history amidst those perfectly uncalled-for sobsand ejaculations of wonder with which women of her soft naturesalute an old acquaintance, or regard a rencontre in the street; forthough people meet other people every day, yet some there are whoinsist upon discovering miracles; and women, even though they havedisliked each other, begin to cry when they meet, deploring andremembering the time when they last quarrelled. So, in a word,Briggs told all her history, and Becky gave a narrative of her ownlife, with her usual artlessness and candour.

Mrs. Bowls, late Firkin, came and listened grimly in the passage tothe hysterical sniffling and giggling which went on in the frontparlour. Becky had never been a favourite of hers. Since theestablishment of the married couple in London they had frequentedtheir former friends of the house of Raggles, and did not like thelatter's account of the Colonel's menage. "I wouldn't trust him,Ragg, my boy," Bowls remarked; and his wife, when Mrs. Rawdon issuedfrom the parlour, only saluted the lady with a very sour curtsey;and her fingers were like so many sausages, cold and lifeless, whenshe held them out in deference to Mrs. Rawdon, who persisted inshaking hands with the retired lady's maid. She whirled away intoPiccadilly, nodding with the sweetest of smiles towards Miss Briggs,who hung nodding at the window close under the advertisement-card,and at the next moment was in the park with a half-dozen of dandiescantering after her carriage.

When she found how her friend was situated, and how having a snuglegacy from Miss Crawley, salary was no object to our gentlewoman,Becky instantly formed some benevolent little domestic plansconcerning her. This was just such a companion as would suit herestablishment, and she invited Briggs to come to dinner with herthat very evening, when she should see Becky's dear little darlingRawdon.

Mrs. Bowls cautioned her lodger against venturing into the lion'sden, "wherein you will rue it, Miss B., mark my words, and as sureas my name is Bowls." And Briggs promised to be very cautious. Theupshot of which caution was that she went to live with Mrs. Rawdonthe next week, and had lent Rawdon Crawley six hundred pounds uponannuity before six months were over.

CHAPTER XLI

In Which Becky Revisits the Halls of Her Ancestors

So the mourning being ready, and Sir Pitt Crawley warned of theirarrival, Colonel Crawley and his wife took a couple of places in thesame old High-flyer coach by which Rebecca had travelled in thedefunct Baronet's company, on her first journey into the world somenine years before. How well she remembered the Inn Yard, and theostler to whom she refused money, and the insinuating Cambridge ladwho wrapped her in his coat on the journey! Rawdon took his placeoutside, and would have liked to drive, but his grief forbade him.He sat by the coachman and talked about horses and the road thewhole way; and who kept the inns, and who horsed the coach by whichhe had travelled so many a time, when he and Pitt were boys going toEton. At Mudbury a carriage and a pair of horses received them,with a coachman in black. "It's the old drag, Rawdon," Rebecca saidas they got in. "The worms have eaten the cloth a good deal--there's the stain which Sir Pitt--ha! I see Dawson the Ironmongerhas his shutters up--which Sir Pitt made such a noise about. It wasa bottle of cherry brandy he broke which we went to fetch for youraunt from Southampton. How time flies, to be sure! That can't bePolly Talboys, that bouncing girl standing by her mother at thecottage there. I remember her a mangy little urchin picking weedsin the garden."

"Fine gal," said Rawdon, returning the salute which the cottage gavehim, by two fingers applied to his crape hatband. Becky bowed andsaluted, and recognized people here and there graciously. Theserecognitions were inexpressibly pleasant to her. It seemed as ifshe was not an imposter any more, and was coming to the home of herancestors. Rawdon was rather abashed and cast down, on the otherhand. What recollections of boyhood and innocence might have beenflitting across his brain? What pangs of dim remorse and doubt andshame?

"Your sisters must be young women now," Rebecca said, thinking ofthose girls for the first time perhaps since she had left them.

They were going through the lodge-gates kept by old Mrs. Lock, whosehand Rebecca insisted upon shaking, as she flung open the creakingold iron gate, and the carriage passed between the two moss-grownpillars surmounted by the dove and serpent.

"The governor has cut into the timber," Rawdon said, looking about,and then was silent--so was Becky. Both of them were ratheragitated, and thinking of old times. He about Eton, and his mother,whom he remembered, a frigid demure woman, and a sister who died, ofwhom he had been passionately fond; and how he used to thrash Pitt;and about little Rawdy at home. And Rebecca thought about her ownyouth and the dark secrets of those early tainted days; and of herentrance into life by yonder gates; and of Miss Pinkerton, and Joe,and Amelia.

The gravel walk and terrace had been scraped quite clean. A grandpainted hatchment was already over the great entrance, and two verysolemn and tall personages in black flung open each a leaf of thedoor as the carriage pulled up at the familiar steps. Rawdon turnedred, and Becky somewhat pale, as they passed through the old hall,arm in arm. She pinched her husband's arm as they entered the oakparlour, where Sir Pitt and his wife were ready to receive them.Sir Pitt in black, Lady Jane in black, and my Lady Southdown with alarge black head-piece of bugles and feathers, which waved on herLadyship's head like an undertaker's tray.

Sir Pitt had judged correctly, that she would not quit the premises.She contented herself by preserving a solemn and stony silence, whenin company of Pitt and his rebellious wife, and by frightening thechildren in the nursery by the ghastly gloom of her demeanour. Onlya very faint bending of the head-dress and plumes welcomed Rawdonand his wife, as those prodigals returned to their family.

To say the truth, they were not affected very much one way or otherby this coolness. Her Ladyship was a person only of secondaryconsideration in their minds just then--they were intent upon thereception which the reigning brother and sister would afford them.

Pitt, with rather a heightened colour, went up and shook his brotherby the hand, and saluted Rebecca with a hand-shake and a very lowbow. But Lady Jane took both the hands of her sister-in-law andkissed her affectionately. The embrace somehow brought tears intothe eyes of the little adventuress--which ornaments, as we know, shewore very seldom. The artless mark of kindness and confidencetouched and pleased her; and Rawdon, encouraged by thisdemonstration on his sister's part, twirled up his mustachios andtook leave to salute Lady Jane with a kiss, which caused herLadyship to blush exceedingly.

"Dev'lish nice little woman, Lady Jane," was his verdict, when heand his wife were together again. "Pitt's got fat, too, and isdoing the thing handsomely." "He can afford it," said Rebecca andagreed in her husband's farther opinion "that the mother-in-law wasa tremendous old Guy--and that the sisters were rather well-lookingyoung women."

They, too, had been summoned from school to attend the funeralceremonies. It seemed Sir Pitt Crawley, for the dignity of thehouse and family, had thought right to have about the place as manypersons in black as could possibly be assembled. All the men andmaids of the house, the old women of the Alms House, whom the elderSir Pitt had cheated out of a great portion of their due, the parishclerk's family, and the special retainers of both Hall and Rectorywere habited in sable; added to these, the undertaker's men, atleast a score, with crapes and hatbands, and who made goodly showwhen the great burying show took place--but these are mutepersonages in our drama; and having nothing to do or say, needoccupy a very little space here.

With regard to her sisters-in-law Rebecca did not attempt to forgether former position of Governess towards them, but recalled itfrankly and kindly, and asked them about their studies with greatgravity, and told them that she had thought of them many and many aday, and longed to know of their welfare. In fact you would havesupposed that ever since she had left them she had not ceased tokeep them uppermost in her thoughts and to take the tenderestinterest in their welfare. So supposed Lady Crawley herself and heryoung sisters.

"She's hardly changed since eight years," said Miss Rosalind to MissViolet, as they were preparing for dinner.

"Those red-haired women look wonderfully well," replied the other.

"Hers is much darker than it was; I think she must dye it," MissRosalind added. "She is stouter, too, and altogether improved,"continued Miss Rosalind, who was disposed to be very fat.

"At least she gives herself no airs and remembers that she was ourGoverness once," Miss Violet said, intimating that it befitted allgovernesses to keep their proper place, and forgetting altogetherthat she was granddaughter not only of Sir Walpole Crawley, but ofMr. Dawson of Mudbury, and so had a coal-scuttle in her scutcheon.There are other very well-meaning people whom one meets every day inVanity Fair who are surely equally oblivious.

"It can't be true what the girls at the Rectory said, that hermother was an opera-dancer--"

"A person can't help their birth," Rosalind replied with greatliberality. "And I agree with our brother, that as she is in thefamily, of course we are bound to notice her. I am sure Aunt Buteneed not talk; she wants to marry Kate to young Hooper, the wine-merchant, and absolutely asked him to come to the Rectory fororders."

"I wish she would. I won't read the Washerwoman of FinchleyCommon," vowed Violet; and so saying, and avoiding a passage at theend of which a certain coffin was placed with a couple of watchers,and lights perpetually burning in the closed room, these young womencame down to the family dinner, for which the bell rang as usual.

But before this, Lady Jane conducted Rebecca to the apartmentsprepared for her, which, with the rest of the house, had assumed avery much improved appearance of order and comfort during Pitt'sregency, and here beholding that Mrs. Rawdon's modest little trunkshad arrived, and were placed in the bedroom and dressing-roomadjoining, helped her to take off her neat black bonnet and cloak,and asked her sister-in-law in what more she could be useful.

"What I should like best," said Rebecca, "would be to go to thenursery and see your dear little children." On which the two ladieslooked very kindly at each other and went to that apartment hand inhand.

Becky admired little Matilda, who was not quite four years old, asthe most charming little love in the world; and the boy, a littlefellow of two years--pale, heavy-eyed, and large-headed--shepronounced to be a perfect prodigy in point of size, intelligence,and beauty.

"I wish Mamma would not insist on giving him so much medicine," LadyJane said with a sigh. "I often think we should all be betterwithout it." And then Lady Jane and her new-found friend had one ofthose confidential medical conversations about the children, whichall mothers, and most women, as I am given to understand, delightin. Fifty years ago, and when the present writer, being aninteresting little boy, was ordered out of the room with the ladiesafter dinner, I remember quite well that their talk was chieflyabout their ailments; and putting this question directly to two orthree since, I have always got from them the acknowledgement thattimes are not changed. Let my fair readers remark for themselvesthis very evening when they quit the dessert-table and assemble tocelebrate the drawing-room mysteries. Well--in half an hour Beckyand Lady Jane were close and intimate friends--and in the course ofthe evening her Ladyship informed Sir Pitt that she thought her newsister-in-law was a kind, frank, unaffected, and affectionate youngwoman.

And so having easily won the daughter's good-will, the indefatigablelittle woman bent herself to conciliate the august Lady Southdown.As soon as she found her Ladyship alone, Rebecca attacked her on thenursery question at once and said that her own little boy was saved,actually saved, by calomel, freely administered, when all thephysicians in Paris had given the dear child up. And then shementioned how often she had heard of Lady Southdown from thatexcellent man the Reverend Lawrence Grills, Minister of the chapelin May Fair, which she frequented; and how her views were very muchchanged by circumstances and misfortunes; and how she hoped that apast life spent in worldliness and error might not incapacitate herfrom more serious thought for the future. She described how informer days she had been indebted to Mr. Crawley for religiousinstruction, touched upon the Washerwoman of Finchley Common, whichshe had read with the greatest profit, and asked about Lady Emily,its gifted author, now Lady Emily Hornblower, at Cape Town, whereher husband had strong hopes of becoming Bishop of Caffraria.

But she crowned all, and confirmed herself in Lady Southdown'sfavour, by feeling very much agitated and unwell after the funeraland requesting her Ladyship's medical advice, which the Dowager notonly gave, but, wrapped up in a bed-gown and looking more like LadyMacbeth than ever, came privately in the night to Becky's room witha parcel of favourite tracts, and a medicine of her own composition,which she insisted that Mrs. Rawdon should take.

Becky first accepted the tracts and began to examine them with greatinterest, engaging the Dowager in a conversation concerning them andthe welfare of her soul, by which means she hoped that her bodymight escape medication. But after the religious topics wereexhausted, Lady Macbeth would not quit Becky's chamber until her cupof night-drink was emptied too; and poor Mrs. Rawdon was compelledactually to assume a look of gratitude, and to swallow the medicineunder the unyielding old Dowager's nose, who left her victim finallywith a benediction.

It did not much comfort Mrs. Rawdon; her countenance was very queerwhen Rawdon came in and heard what had happened; and. hisexplosions of laughter were as loud as usual, when Becky, with a funwhich she could not disguise, even though it was at her own expense,described the occurrence and how she had been victimized by LadySouthdown. Lord Steyne, and her son in London, had many a laughover the story when Rawdon and his wife returned to their quartersin May Fair. Becky acted the whole scene for them. She put on anight-cap and gown. She preached a great sermon in the true seriousmanner; she lectured on the virtue of the medicine which shepretended to administer, with a gravity of imitation so perfect thatyou would have thought it was the Countess's own Roman nose throughwhich she snuffled. "Give us Lady Southdown and the black dose," wasa constant cry amongst the folks in Becky's little drawing-room inMay Fair. And for the first time in her life the Dowager Countessof Southdown was made amusing.

Sir Pitt remembered the testimonies of respect and veneration whichRebecca had paid personally to himself in early days, and wastolerably well disposed towards her. The marriage, ill-advised asit was, had improved Rawdon very much--that was clear from theColonel's altered habits and demeanour--and had it not been a luckyunion as regarded Pitt himself? The cunning diplomatist smiledinwardly as he owned that he owed his fortune to it, andacknowledged that he at least ought not to cry out against it. Hissatisfaction was not removed by Rebecca's own statements, behaviour,and conversation.

She doubled the deference which before had charmed him, calling outhis conversational powers in such a manner as quite to surprise Pitthimself, who, always inclined to respect his own talents, admiredthem the more when Rebecca pointed them out to him. With hersister-in-law, Rebecca was satisfactorily able to prove that it wasMrs. Bute Crawley who brought about the marriage which sheafterwards so calumniated; that it was Mrs. Bute's avarice--whohoped to gain all Miss Crawley's fortune and deprive Rawdon of hisaunt's favour--which caused and invented all the wicked reportsagainst Rebecca. "She succeeded in making us poor," Rebecca saidwith an air of angelical patience; "but how can I be angry with awoman who has given me one of the best husbands in the world? Andhas not her own avarice been sufficiently punished by the ruin ofher own hopes and the loss of the property by which she set so muchstore? Poor!" she cried. "Dear Lady Jane, what care we for poverty?I am used to it from childhood, and I am often thankful that MissCrawley's money has gone to restore the splendour of the noble oldfamily of which I am so proud to be a member. I am sure Sir Pittwill make a much better use of it than Rawdon would."

All these speeches were reported to Sir Pitt by the most faithful ofwives, and increased the favourable impression which Rebecca made;so much so that when, on the third day after the funeral, the familyparty were at dinner, Sir Pitt Crawley, carving fowls at the head ofthe table, actually said to Mrs. Rawdon, "Ahem! Rebecca, may I giveyou a wing?"--a speech which made the little woman's eyes sparklewith pleasure.

While Rebecca was prosecuting the above schemes and hopes, and PittCrawley arranging the funeral ceremonial and other matters connectedwith his future progress and dignity, and Lady Jane busy with hernursery, as far as her mother would let her, and the sun rising andsetting, and the clock-tower bell of the Hall ringing to dinner andto prayers as usual, the body of the late owner of Queen's Crawleylay in the apartment which he had occupied, watched unceasingly bythe professional attendants who were engaged for that rite. A womanor two, and three or four undertaker's men, the best whomSouthampton could furnish, dressed in black, and of a properstealthy and tragical demeanour, had charge of the remains whichthey watched turn about, having the housekeeper's room for theirplace of rendezvous when off duty, where they played at cards inprivacy and drank their beer.

The members of the family and servants of the house kept away fromthe gloomy spot, where the bones of the descendant of an ancientline of knights and gentlemen lay, awaiting their final consignmentto the family crypt. No regrets attended them, save those of thepoor woman who had hoped to be Sir Pitt's wife and widow and who hadfled in disgrace from the Hall over which she had so nearly been aruler. Beyond her and a favourite old pointer he had, and betweenwhom and himself an attachment subsisted during the period of hisimbecility, the old man had not a single friend to mourn him, havingindeed, during the whole course of his life, never taken the leastpains to secure one. Could the best and kindest of us who departfrom the earth have an opportunity of revisiting it, I suppose he orshe (assuming that any Vanity Fair feelings subsist in the spherewhither we are bound) would have a pang of mortification at findinghow soon our survivors were consoled. And so Sir Pitt wasforgotten--like the kindest and best of us--only a few weeks sooner.

Those who will may follow his remains to the grave, whither theywere borne on the appointed day, in the most becoming manner, thefamily in black coaches, with their handkerchiefs up to their noses,ready for the tears which did not come; the undertaker and hisgentlemen in deep tribulation; the select tenantry mourning out ofcompliment to the new landlord; the neighbouring gentry's carriagesat three miles an hour, empty, and in profound affliction; theparson speaking out the formula about "our dear brother departed."As long as we have a man's body, we play our Vanities upon it,surrounding it with humbug and ceremonies, laying it in state, andpacking it up in gilt nails and velvet; and we finish our duty byplacing over it a stone, written all over with lies. Bute's curate,a smart young fellow from Oxford, and Sir Pitt Crawley composedbetween them an appropriate Latin epitaph for the late lamentedBaronet, and the former preached a classical sermon, exhorting thesurvivors not to give way to grief and informing them in the mostrespectful terms that they also would be one day called upon to passthat gloomy and mysterious portal which had just closed upon theremains of their lamented brother. Then the tenantry mounted onhorseback again, or stayed and refreshed themselves at the CrawleyArms. Then, after a lunch in the servants' hall at Queen's Crawley,the gentry's carriages wheeled off to their different destinations:then the undertaker's men, taking the ropes, palls, velvets, ostrichfeathers, and other mortuary properties, clambered up on the roof ofthe hearse and rode off to Southampton. Their faces relapsed into anatural expression as the horses, clearing the lodge-gates, got intoa brisker trot on the open road; and squads of them might have beenseen, speckling with black the public-house entrances, with pewter-pots flashing in the sunshine. Sir Pitt's invalid chair was wheeledaway into a tool-house in the garden; the old pointer used to howlsometimes at first, but these were the only accents of grief whichwere heard in the Hall of which Sir Pitt Crawley, Baronet, had beenmaster for some threescore years.

As the birds were pretty plentiful, and partridge shooting is as itwere the duty of an English gentleman of statesmanlike propensities,Sir Pitt Crawley, the first shock of grief over, went out a littleand partook of that diversion in a white hat with crape round it.The sight of those fields of stubble and turnips, now his own, gavehim many secret joys. Sometimes, and with an exquisite humility, hetook no gun, but went out with a peaceful bamboo cane; Rawdon, hisbig brother, and the keepers blazing away at his side. Pitt's moneyand acres had a great effect upon his brother. The pennilessColonel became quite obsequious and respectful to the head of hishouse, and despised the milksop Pitt no longer. Rawdon listenedwith sympathy to his senior's prospects of planting and draining,gave his advice about the stables and cattle, rode over to Mudburyto look at a mare, which he thought would carry Lady Jane, andoffered to break her, &c.: the rebellious dragoon was quite humbledand subdued, and became a most creditable younger brother. He hadconstant bulletins from Miss Briggs in London respecting littleRawdon, who was left behind there, who sent messages of his own. "Iam very well," he wrote. "I hope you are very well. I hope Mammais very well. The pony is very well. Grey takes me to ride in thepark. I can canter. I met the little boy who rode before. He criedwhen he cantered. I do not cry." Rawdon read these letters to hisbrother and Lady Jane, who was delighted with them. The Baronetpromised to take charge of the lad at school, and his kind-heartedwife gave Rebecca a bank-note, begging her to buy a present with itfor her little nephew.

One day followed another, and the ladies of the house passed theirlife in those calm pursuits and amusements which satisfy countryladies. Bells rang to meals and to prayers. The young ladies tookexercise on the pianoforte every morning after breakfast, Rebeccagiving them the benefit of her instruction. Then they put on thickshoes and walked in the park or shrubberies, or beyond the palingsinto the village, descending upon the cottages, with LadySouthdown's medicine and tracts for the sick people there. LadySouthdown drove out in a pony-chaise, when Rebecca would take herplace by the Dowager's side and listen to her solemn talk with theutmost interest. She sang Handel and Haydn to the family ofevenings, and engaged in a large piece of worsted work, as if shehad been born to the business and as if this kind of life was tocontinue with her until she should sink to the grave in a polite oldage, leaving regrets and a great quantity of consols behind her--asif there were not cares and duns, schemes, shifts, and povertywaiting outside the park gates, to pounce upon her when she issuedinto the world again.

"It isn't difficult to be a country gentleman's wife," Rebeccathought. "I think I could be a good woman if I had five thousand ayear. I could dawdle about in the nursery and count the apricots onthe wall. I could water plants in a green-house and pick off deadleaves from the geraniums. I could ask old women about theirrheumatisms and order half-a-crown's worth of soup for the poor. Ishouldn't miss it much, out of five thousand a year. I could evendrive out ten miles to dine at a neighbour's, and dress in thefashions of the year before last. I could go to church and keepawake in the great family pew, or go to sleep behind the curtains,with my veil down, if I only had practice. I could pay everybody,if I had but the money. This is what the conjurors here pridethemselves upon doing. They look down with pity upon us miserablesinners who have none. They think themselves generous if they giveour children a five-pound note, and us contemptible if we arewithout one." And who knows but Rebecca was right in herspeculations--and that it was only a question of money and fortunewhich made the difference between her and an honest woman? If youtake temptations into account, who is to say that he is better thanhis neighbour? A comfortable career of prosperity, if it does notmake people honest, at least keeps them so. An alderman coming froma turtle feast will not step out of his carnage to steal a leg ofmutton; but put him to starve, and see if he will not purloin aloaf. Becky consoled herself by so balancing the chances andequalizing the distribution of good and evil in the world.

The old haunts, the old fields and woods, the copses, ponds, andgardens, the rooms of the old house where she had spent a couple ofyears seven years ago, were all carefully revisited by her. She hadbeen young there, or comparatively so, for she forgot the time whenshe ever WAS young--but she remembered her thoughts and feelingsseven years back and contrasted them with those which she had atpresent, now that she had seen the world, and lived with greatpeople, and raised herself far beyond her original humble station.

"I have passed beyond it, because I have brains," Becky thought,"and almost all the rest of the world are fools. I could not go backand consort with those people now, whom I used to meet in myfather's studio. Lords come up to my door with stars and garters,instead of poor artists with screws of tobacco in their pockets. Ihave a gentleman for my husband, and an Earl's daughter for mysister, in the very house where I was little better than a servant afew years ago. But am I much better to do now in the world than Iwas when I was the poor painter's daughter and wheedled the grocerround the corner for sugar and tea? Suppose I had married Franciswho was so fond of me--I couldn't have been much poorer than I amnow. Heigho! I wish I could exchange my position in society, andall my relations for a snug sum in the Three Per Cent. Consols";for so it was that Becky felt the Vanity of human affairs, and itwas in those securities that she would have liked to cast anchor.

It may, perhaps, have struck her that to have been honest andhumble, to have done her duty, and to have marched straightforwardon her way, would have brought her as near happiness as that path bywhich she was striving to attain it. But--just as the children atQueen's Crawley went round the room where the body of their fatherlay--if ever Becky had these thoughts, she was accustomed to walkround them and not look in. She eluded them and despised them--orat least she was committed to the other path from which retreat wasnow impossible. And for my part I believe that remorse is the leastactive of all a man's moral senses--the very easiest to be deadenedwhen wakened, and in some never wakened at all. We grieve at beingfound out and at the idea of shame or punishment, but the mere senseof wrong makes very few people unhappy in Vanity Fair.

So Rebecca, during her stay at Queen's Crawley, made as many friendsof the Mammon of Unrighteousness as she could possibly bring undercontrol. Lady Jane and her husband bade her farewell with thewarmest demonstrations of good-will. They looked forward withpleasure to the time when, the family house in Gaunt Street beingrepaired and beautified, they were to meet again in London. LadySouthdown made her up a packet of medicine and sent a letter by herto the Rev. Lawrence Grills, exhorting that gentleman to save thebrand who "honoured" the letter from the burning. Pitt accompaniedthem with four horses in the carriage to Mudbury, having sent ontheir baggage in a cart previously, accompanied with loads of game.

"How happy you will be to see your darling little boy again!" LadyCrawley said, taking leave of her kinswoman.

"Oh so happy!" said Rebecca, throwing up the green eyes. She wasimmensely happy to be free of the place, and yet loath to go.Queen's Crawley was abominably stupid, and yet the air there wassomehow purer than that which she had been accustomed to breathe.Everybody had been dull, but had been kind in their way. "It is allthe influence of a long course of Three Per Cents," Becky said toherself, and was right very likely.

However, the London lamps flashed joyfully as the stage rolled intoPiccadilly, and Briggs had made a beautiful fire in Curzon Street,and little Rawdon was up to welcome back his papa and mamma.

CHAPTER XLII

Which Treats of the Osborne Family

Considerable time has elapsed since we have seen our respectablefriend, old Mr. Osborne of Russell Square. He has not been thehappiest of mortals since last we met him. Events have occurredwhich have not improved his temper, and in more in stances than onehe has not been allowed to have his own way. To be thwarted in thisreasonable desire was always very injurious to the old gentleman;and resistance became doubly exasperating when gout, age,loneliness, and the force of many disappointments combined to weighhim down. His stiff black hair began to grow quite white soon afterhis son's death; his-face grew redder; his hands trembled more andmore as he poured out his glass of port wine. He led his clerks adire life in the City: his family at home were not much happier. Idoubt if Rebecca, whom we have seen piously praying for Consols,would have exchanged her poverty and the dare-devil excitement andchances of her life for Osborne's money and the humdrum gloom whichenveloped him. He had proposed for Miss Swartz, but had beenrejected scornfully by the partisans of that lady, who married herto a young sprig of Scotch nobility. He was a man to have married awoman out of low life and bullied her dreadfully afterwards; but noperson presented herself suitable to his taste, and, instead, hetyrannized over his unmarried daughter, at home. She had a finecarriage and fine horses and sat at the head of a table loaded withthe grandest plate. She had a cheque-book, a prize footman tofollow her when she walked, unlimited credit, and bows andcompliments from all the tradesmen, and all the appurtenances of anheiress; but she spent a woeful time. The little charity-girls atthe Foundling, the sweeperess at the crossing, the poorest under-kitchen-maid in the servants' hall, was happy compared to thatunfortunate and now middle-aged young lady.

Frederick Bullock, Esq., of the house of Bullock, Hulker, andBullock, had married Maria Osborne, not without a great deal ofdifficulty and grumbling on Mr. Bullock's part. George being deadand cut out of his father's will, Frederick insisted that the halfof the old gentleman's property should be settled upon his Maria,and indeed, for a long time, refused, "to come to the scratch" (itwas Mr. Frederick's own expression) on any other terms. Osbornesaid Fred had agreed to take his daughter with twenty thousand, andhe should bind himself to no more. "Fred might take it, andwelcome, or leave it, and go and be hanged." Fred, whose hopes hadbeen raised when George had been disinherited, thought himselfinfamously swindled by the old merchant, and for some time made asif he would break off the match altogether. Osborne withdrew hisaccount from Bullock and Hulker's, went on 'Change with a horsewhipwhich he swore he would lay across the back of a certain scoundrelthat should be nameless, and demeaned himself in his usual violentmanner. Jane Osborne condoled with her sister Maria during thisfamily feud. "I always told you, Maria, that it was your money heloved and not you," she said, soothingly.

"He selected me and my money at any rate; he didn't choose you andyours," replied Maria, tossing up her head.

The rapture was, however, only temporary. Fred's father and seniorpartners counselled him to take Maria, even with the twenty thousandsettled, half down, and half at the death of Mr. Osborne, with thechances of the further division of the property. So he "knuckleddown," again to use his own phrase, and sent old Hulker withpeaceable overtures to Osborne. It was his father, he said, whowould not hear of the match, and had made the difficulties; he wasmost anxious to keep the engagement. The excuse was sulkilyaccepted by Mr. Osborne. Hulker and Bullock were a high family ofthe City aristocracy, and connected with the "nobs" at the West End.It was something for the old man to be able to say, "My son, sir, ofthe house of Hulker, Bullock, and Co., sir; my daughter's cousin,Lady Mary Mango, sir, daughter of the Right Hon. The Earl ofCastlemouldy." In his imagination he saw his house peopled by the"nobs." So he forgave young Bullock and consented that the marriageshould take place.

It was a grand affair--the bridegroom's relatives giving thebreakfast, their habitations being near St. George's, HanoverSquare, where the business took place. The "nobs of the West End"were invited, and many of them signed the book. Mr. Mango and LadyMary Mango were there, with the dear young Gwendoline and GuineverMango as bridesmaids; Colonel Bludyer of the Dragoon Guards (eldestson of the house of Bludyer Brothers, Mincing Lane), another cousinof the bridegroom, and the Honourable Mrs. Bludyer; the HonourableGeorge Boulter, Lord Levant's son, and his lady, Miss Mango thatwas; Lord Viscount Castletoddy; Honourable James McMull and Mrs.McMull (formerly Miss Swartz); and a host of fashionables, who haveall married into Lombard Street and done a great deal to ennobleCornhill.

The young couple had a house near Berkeley Square and a small villaat Roehampton, among the banking colony there. Fred was consideredto have made rather a mesalliance by the ladies of his family, whosegrandfather had been in a Charity School, and who were alliedthrough the husbands with some of the best blood in England. AndMaria was bound, by superior pride and great care in the compositionof her visiting-book, to make up for the defects of birth, and feltit her duty to see her father and sister as little as possible.

That she should utterly break with the old man, who had still somany scores of thousand pounds to give away, is absurd to suppose.Fred Bullock would never allow her to do that. But she was stillyoung and incapable of hiding her feelings; and by inviting her papaand sister to her third-rate parties, and behaving very coldly tothem when they came, and by avoiding Russell Square, andindiscreetly begging her father to quit that odious vulgar place,she did more harm than all Frederick's diplomacy could repair, andperilled her chance of her inheritance like a giddy heedlesscreature as she was.

"So Russell Square is not good enough for Mrs. Maria, hay?" said theold gentleman, rattling up the carriage windows as he and hisdaughter drove away one night from Mrs. Frederick Bullock's, afterdinner. "So she invites her father and sister to a second day'sdinner (if those sides, or ontrys, as she calls 'em, weren't servedyesterday, I'm d--d), and to meet City folks and littery men, andkeeps the Earls and the Ladies, and the Honourables to herself.Honourables? Damn Honourables. I am a plain British merchant I am,and could buy the beggarly hounds over and over. Lords, indeed!--why, at one of her swarreys I saw one of 'em speak to a dam fiddler--a fellar I despise. And they won't come to Russell Square, won'tthey? Why, I'll lay my life I've got a better glass of wine, and paya better figure for it, and can show a handsomer service of silver,and can lay a better dinner on my mahogany, than ever they see ontheirs--the cringing, sneaking, stuck-up fools. Drive on quick,James: I want to get back to Russell Square--ha, ha!" and he sankback into the corner with a furious laugh. With such reflections onhis own superior merit, it was the custom of the old gentleman notunfrequently to console himself.

Jane Osborne could not but concur in these opinions respecting hersister's conduct; and when Mrs. Frederick's first-born, FrederickAugustus Howard Stanley Devereux Bullock, was born, old Osborne, whowas invited to the christening and to be godfather, contentedhimself with sending the child a gold cup, with twenty guineasinside it for the nurse. "That's more than any of your Lords willgive, I'LL warrant," he said and refused to attend at the ceremony.

The splendour of the gift, however, caused great satisfaction to thehouse of Bullock. Maria thought that her father was very muchpleased with her, and Frederick augured the best for his little sonand heir.

One can fancy the pangs with which Miss Osborne in her solitude inRussell Square read the Morning Post, where her sister's nameoccurred every now and then, in the articles headed "FashionableReunions," and where she had an opportunity of reading a descriptionof Mrs. F. Bullock's costume, when presented at the drawing room byLady Frederica Bullock. Jane's own life, as we have said, admittedof no such grandeur. It was an awful existence. She had to get upof black winter's mornings to make breakfast for her scowling oldfather, who would have turned the whole house out of doors if histea had not been ready at half-past eight. She remained silentopposite to him, listening to the urn hissing, and sitting in tremorwhile the parent read his paper and consumed his accustomed portionof muffins and tea. At half-past nine he rose and went to the City,and she was almost free till dinner-time, to make visitations in thekitchen and to scold the servants; to drive abroad and descend uponthe tradesmen, who were prodigiously respectful; to leave her cardsand her papa's at the great glum respectable houses of their Cityfriends; or to sit alone in the large drawing-room, expectingvisitors; and working at a huge piece of worsted by the fire, on thesofa, hard by the great Iphigenia clock, which ticked and tolledwith mournful loudness in the dreary room. The great glass over themantelpiece, faced by the other great console glass at the oppositeend of the room, increased and multiplied between them the brownHolland bag in which the chandelier hung, until you saw these brownHolland bags fading away in endless perspectives, and this apartmentof Miss Osborne's seemed the centre of a system of drawing-rooms.When she removed the cordovan leather from the grand piano andventured to play a few notes on it, it sounded with a mournfulsadness, startling the dismal echoes of the house. George's picturewas gone, and laid upstairs in a lumber-room in the garret; andthough there was a consciousness of him, and father and daughteroften instinctively knew that they were thinking of him, no mentionwas ever made of the brave and once darling son.

At five o'clock Mr. Osborne came back to his dinner, which he andhis daughter took in silence (seldom broken, except when he sworeand was savage, if the cooking was not to his liking), or which theyshared twice in a month with a party of dismal friends of Osborne'srank and age. Old Dr. Gulp and his lady from Bloomsbury Square; oldMr. Frowser, the attorney, from Bedford Row, a very great man, andfrom his business, hand-in-glove with the "nobs at the West End";old Colonel Livermore, of the Bombay Army, and Mrs. Livermore, fromUpper Bedford Place; old Sergeant Toffy and Mrs. Toffy; andsometimes old Sir Thomas Coffin and Lady Coffin, from BedfordSquare. Sir Thomas was celebrated as a hanging judge, and theparticular tawny port was produced when he dined with Mr. Osborne.

These people and their like gave the pompous Russell Square merchantpompous dinners back again. They had solemn rubbers of whist, whenthey went upstairs after drinking, and their carriages were calledat half past ten. Many rich people, whom we poor devils are in thehabit of envying, lead contentedly an existence like that abovedescribed. Jane Osborne scarcely ever met a man under sixty, andalmost the only bachelor who appeared in their society was Mr.Smirk, the celebrated ladies' doctor.

I can't say that nothing had occurred to disturb the monotony ofthis awful existence: the fact is, there had been a secret in poorJane's life which had made her father more savage and morose thaneven nature, pride, and over-feeding had made him. This secret wasconnected with Miss Wirt, who had a cousin an artist, Mr. Smee, verycelebrated since as a portrait-painter and R.A., but who once wasglad enough to give drawing lessons to ladies of fashion. Mr. Smeehas forgotten where Russell Square is now, but he was glad enough tovisit it in the year 1818, when Miss Osborne had instruction fromhim.

Smee (formerly a pupil of Sharpe of Frith Street, a dissolute,irregular, and unsuccessful man, but a man with great knowledge ofhis art) being the cousin of Miss Wirt, we say, and introduced byher to Miss Osborne, whose hand and heart were still free aftervarious incomplete love affairs, felt a great attachment for thislady, and it is believed inspired one in her bosom. Miss Wirt wasthe confidante of this intrigue. I know not whether she used toleave the room where the master and his pupil were painting, inorder to give them an opportunity for exchanging those vows andsentiments which cannot be uttered advantageously in the presence ofa third party; I know not whether she hoped that should her cousinsucceed in carrying off the rich merchant's daughter, he would giveMiss Wirt a portion of the wealth which she had enabled him to win--all that is certain is that Mr. Osborne got some hint of thetransaction, came back from the City abruptly, and entered thedrawing-room with his bamboo cane; found the painter, the pupil, andthe companion all looking exceedingly pale there; turned the formerout of doors with menaces that he would break every bone in hisskin, and half an hour afterwards dismissed Miss Wirt likewise,kicking her trunks down the stairs, trampling on her bandboxes, andshaking his fist at her hackney coach as it bore her away.

Jane Osborne kept her bedroom for many days. She was not allowed tohave a companion afterwards. Her father swore to her that sheshould not have a shilling of his money if she made any matchwithout his concurrence; and as he wanted a woman to keep his house,he did not choose that she should marry, so that she was obliged togive up all projects with which Cupid had any share. During herpapa's life, then, she resigned herself to the manner of existencehere described, and was content to be an old maid. Her sister,meanwhile, was having children with finer names every year and theintercourse between the two grew fainter continually. "Jane and Ido not move in the same sphere of life," Mrs. Bullock said. "Iregard her as a sister, of course"--which means--what does it meanwhen a lady says that she regards Jane as a sister?

It has been described how the Misses Dobbin lived with their fatherat a fine villa at Denmark Hill, where there were beautifulgraperies and peach-trees which delighted little Georgy Osborne.The Misses Dobbin, who drove often to Brompton to see our dearAmelia, came sometimes to Russell Square too, to pay a visit totheir old acquaintance Miss Osborne. I believe it was inconsequence of the commands of their brother the Major in India (forwhom their papa had a prodigious respect), that they paid attentionto Mrs. George; for the Major, the godfather and guardian ofAmelia's little boy, still hoped that the child's grandfather mightbe induced to relent towards him and acknowledge him for the sake ofhis son. The Misses Dobbin kept Miss Osborne acquainted with thestate of Amelia's affairs; how she was living with her father andmother; how poor they were; how they wondered what men, and such menas their brother and dear Captain Osborne, could find in such aninsignificant little chit; how she was still, as heretofore, anamby-pamby milk-and-water affected creature--but how the boy wasreally the noblest little boy ever seen--for the hearts of all womenwarm towards young children, and the sourest spinster is kind tothem.

One day, after great entreaties on the part of the Misses Dobbin,Amelia allowed little George to go and pass a day with them atDenmark Hill--a part of which day she spent herself in writing tothe Major in India. She congratulated him on the happy news whichhis sisters had just conveyed to her. She prayed for his prosperityand that of the bride he had chosen. She thanked him for a thousandthousand kind offices and proofs of stead fast friendship to her inher affliction. She told him the last news about little Georgy, andhow he was gone to spend that very day with his sisters in thecountry. She underlined the letter a great deal, and she signedherself affectionately his friend, Amelia Osborne. She forgot tosend any message of kindness to Lady O'Dowd, as her wont was--anddid not mention Glorvina by name, and only in italics, as theMajor's BRIDE, for whom she begged blessings. But the news of themarriage removed the reserve which she had kept up towards him. Shewas glad to be able to own and feel how warmly and gratefully sheregarded him--and as for the idea of being jealous of Glorvina(Glorvina, indeed!), Amelia would have scouted it, if an angel fromheaven had hinted it to her. That night, when Georgy came back inthe pony-carriage in which he rejoiced, and in which he was drivenby Sir Wm. Dobbin's old coachman, he had round his neck a fine goldchain and watch. He said an old lady, not pretty, had given it him,who cried and kissed him a great deal. But he didn't like her. Heliked grapes very much. And he only liked his mamma. Amelia shrankand started; the timid soul felt a presentiment of terror when sheheard that the relations of the child's father had seen him.

Miss Osborne came back to give her father his dinner. He had made agood speculation in the City, and was rather in a good humour thatday, and chanced to remark the agitation under which she laboured."What's the matter, Miss Osborne?" he deigned to say.

The woman burst into tears. "Oh, sir," she said, "I've seen littleGeorge. He is as beautiful as an angel--and so like him!" The oldman opposite to her did not say a word, but flushed up and began totremble in every limb.

CHAPTER XLIII

In Which the Reader Has to Double the Cape

The astonished reader must be called upon to transport himself tenthousand miles to the military station of Bundlegunge, in the Madrasdivision of our Indian empire, where our gallant old friends of the--th regiment are quartered under the command of the brave Colonel,Sir Michael O'Dowd. Time has dealt kindly with that stout officer,as it does ordinarily with men who have good stomachs and goodtempers and are not perplexed over much by fatigue of the brain.The Colonel plays a good knife and fork at tiffin and resumes thoseweapons with great success at dinner. He smokes his hookah afterboth meals and puffs as quietly while his wife scolds him as he didunder the fire of the French at Waterloo. Age and heat have notdiminished the activity or the eloquence of the descendant of theMalonys and the Molloys. Her Ladyship, our old acquaintance, is asmuch at home at Madras as at Brussels in the cantonment as under thetents. On the march you saw her at the head of the regiment seatedon a royal elephant, a noble sight. Mounted on that beast, she hasbeen into action with tigers in the jungle, she has been received bynative princes, who have welcomed her and Glorvina into the recessesof their zenanas and offered her shawls and jewels which it went toher heart to refuse. The sentries of all arms salute her wherevershe makes her appearance, and she touches her hat gravely to theirsalutation. Lady O'Dowd is one of the greatest ladies in thePresidency of Madras--her quarrel with Lady Smith, wife of Sir MinosSmith the puisne judge, is still remembered by some at Madras, whenthe Colonel's lady snapped her fingers in the Judge's lady's faceand said SHE'D never walk behind ever a beggarly civilian. Evennow, though it is five-and-twenty years ago, people remember LadyO'Dowd performing a jig at Government House, where she danced downtwo Aides-de-Camp, a Major of Madras cavalry, and two gentlemen ofthe Civil Service; and, persuaded by Major Dobbin, C.B., second incommand of the --th, to retire to the supper-room, lassata nondumsatiata recessit.

Peggy O'Dowd is indeed the same as ever, kind in act and thought;impetuous in temper; eager to command; a tyrant over her Michael; adragon amongst all the ladies of the regiment; a mother to all theyoung men, whom she tends in their sickness, defends in all theirscrapes, and with whom Lady Peggy is immensely popular. But theSubalterns' and Captains' ladies (the Major is unmarried) cabalagainst her a good deal. They say that Glorvina gives herself airsand that Peggy herself is ill tolerably domineering. She interferedwith a little congregation which Mrs. Kirk had got up and laughedthe young men away from her sermons, stating that a soldier's wifehad no business to be a parson--that Mrs. Kirk would be much bettermending her husband's clothes; and, if the regiment wanted sermons,that she had the finest in the world, those of her uncle, the Dean.She abruptly put a termination to a flirtation which LieutenantStubble of the regiment had commenced with the Surgeon's wife,threatening to come down upon Stubble for the money which he hadborrowed from her (for the young fellow was still of an extravagantturn) unless he broke off at once and went to the Cape on sickleave. On the other hand, she housed and sheltered Mrs. Posky, whofled from her bungalow one night, pursued by her infuriate husband,wielding his second brandy bottle, and actually carried Poskythrough the delirium tremens and broke him of the habit of drinking,which had grown upon that officer, as all evil habits will grow uponmen. In a word, in adversity she was the best of comforters, ingood fortune the most troublesome of friends, having a perfectlygood opinion of herself always and an indomitable resolution to haveher own way.

Among other points, she had made up her mind that Glorvina shouldmarry our old friend Dobbin. Mrs. O'Dowd knew the Major'sexpectations and appreciated his good qualities and the highcharacter which he enjoyed in his profession. Glorvina, a veryhandsome, fresh-coloured, black-haired, blue-eyed young lady, whocould ride a horse, or play a sonata with any girl out of the CountyCork, seemed to be the very person destined to insure Dobbin'shappiness--much more than that poor good little weak-spur'tedAmelia, about whom he used to take on so.--"Look at Glorvina enter aroom," Mrs. O'Dowd would say, "and compare her with that poor Mrs.Osborne, who couldn't say boo to a goose. She'd be worthy of you,Major--you're a quiet man yourself, and want some one to talk forye. And though she does not come of such good blood as the Malonysor Molloys, let me tell ye, she's of an ancient family that anynobleman might be proud to marry into."

But before she had come to such a resolution and determined tosubjugate Major Dobbin by her endearments, it must be owned thatGlorvina had practised them a good deal elsewhere. She had had aseason in Dublin, and who knows how many in Cork, Killarney, andMallow? She had flirted with all the marriageable officers whom thedepots of her country afforded, and all the bachelor squires whoseemed eligible. She had been engaged to be married a half-scoretimes in Ireland, besides the clergyman at Bath who used her so ill.She had flirted all the way to Madras with the Captain and chiefmate of the Ramchunder East Indiaman, and had a season at thePresidency with her brother and Mrs. O'Dowd, who was staying there,while the Major of the regiment was in command at the station.Everybody admired her there; everybody danced with her; but no oneproposed who was worth the marrying--one or two exceedingly youngsubalterns sighed after her, and a beardless civilian or two, butshe rejected these as beneath her pretensions--and other and youngervirgins than Glorvina were married before her. There are women, andhandsome women too, who have this fortune in life. They fall inlove with the utmost generosity; they ride and walk with half theArmy-list, though they draw near to forty, and yet the MissesO'Grady are the Misses O'Grady still: Glorvina persisted that butfor Lady O'Dowd's unlucky quarrel with the Judge's lady, she wouldhave made a good match at Madras, where old Mr. Chutney, who was atthe head of the civil service (and who afterwards married MissDolby, a young lady only thirteen years of age who had just arrivedfrom school in Europe), was just at the point of proposing to her.

Well, although Lady O'Dowd and Glorvina quarrelled a great number oftimes every day, and upon almost every conceivable subject--indeed,if Mick O'Dowd had not possessed the temper of an angel two suchwomen constantly about his ears would have driven him out of hissenses--yet they agreed between themselves on this point, thatGlorvina should marry Major Dobbin, and were determined that theMajor should have no rest until the arrangement was brought about.Undismayed by forty or fifty previous defeats, Glorvina laid siegeto him. She sang Irish melodies at him unceasingly. She asked himso frequently and pathetically, Will ye come to the bower? that itis a wonder how any man of feeling could have resisted theinvitation. She was never tired of inquiring, if Sorrow had hisyoung days faded, and was ready to listen and weep like Desdemona atthe stories of his dangers and his campaigns. It has been said thatour honest and dear old friend used to perform on the flute inprivate; Glorvina insisted upon having duets with him, and LadyO'Dowd would rise and artlessly quit the room when the young couplewere so engaged. Glorvina forced the Major to ride with her ofmornings. The whole cantonment saw them set out and return. Shewas constantly writing notes over to him at his house, borrowing hisbooks, and scoring with her great pencil-marks such passages ofsentiment or humour as awakened her sympathy. She borrowed hishorses, his servants, his spoons, and palanquin--no wonder thatpublic rumour assigned her to him, and that the Major's sisters inEngland should fancy they were about to have a sister-in-law.

Dobbin, who was thus vigorously besieged, was in the meanwhile in astate of the most odious tranquillity. He used to laugh when theyoung fellows of the regiment joked him about Glorvina's manifestattentions to him. "Bah!" said he, "she is only keeping her hand in--she practises upon me as she does upon Mrs. Tozer's piano, becauseit's the most handy instrument in the station. I am much toobattered and old for such a fine young lady as Glorvina." And so hewent on riding with her, and copying music and verses into heralbums, and playing at chess with her very submissively; for it iswith these simple amusements that some officers in India areaccustomed to while away their leisure moments, while others of aless domestic turn hunt hogs, and shoot snipes, or gamble and smokecheroots, and betake themselves to brandy-and-water. As for SirMichael O'Dowd, though his lady and her sister both urged him tocall upon the Major to explain himself and not keep on torturing apoor innocent girl in that shameful way, the old soldier refusedpoint-blank to have anything to do with the conspiracy. "Faith, theMajor's big enough to choose for himself," Sir Michael said; "he'llask ye when he wants ye"; or else he would turn the matter offjocularly, declaring that "Dobbin was too young to keep house, andhad written home to ask lave of his mamma." Nay, he went farther,and in private communications with his Major would caution and rallyhim, crying, "Mind your oi, Dob, my boy, them girls is bent onmischief--me Lady has just got a box of gowns from Europe, andthere's a pink satin for Glorvina, which will finish ye, Dob, ifit's in the power of woman or satin to move ye."

But the truth is, neither beauty nor fashion could conquer him. Ourhonest friend had but one idea of a woman in his head, and that onedid not in the least resemble Miss Glorvina O'Dowd in pink satin. Agentle little woman in black, with large eyes and brown hair, seldomspeaking, save when spoken to, and then in a voice not the leastresembling Miss Glorvina's--a soft young mother tending an infantand beckoning the Major up with a smile to look at him--a rosy-cheeked lass coming singing into the room in Russell Square orhanging on George Osborne's arm, happy and loving--there was butthis image that filled our honest Major's mind, by day and by night,and reigned over it always. Very likely Amelia was not like theportrait the Major had formed of her: there was a figure in a bookof fashions which his sisters had in England, and with which Williamhad made away privately, pasting it into the lid of his desk, andfancying he saw some resemblance to Mrs. Osborne in the print,whereas I have seen it, and can vouch that it is but the picture ofa high-waisted gown with an impossible doll's face simpering overit--and, perhaps, Mr. Dobbin's sentimental Amelia was no more likethe real one than this absurd little print which he cherished. Butwhat man in love, of us, is better informed?--or is he much happierwhen he sees and owns his delusion? Dobbin was under this spell. Hedid not bother his friends and the public much about his feelings,or indeed lose his natural rest or appetite on account of them. Hishead has grizzled since we saw him last, and a line or two of silvermay be seen in the soft brown hair likewise. But his feelings arenot in the least changed or oldened, and his love remains as freshas a man's recollections of boyhood are.

We have said how the two Misses Dobbin and Amelia, the Major'scorrespondents in Europe, wrote him letters from England, Mrs.Osborne congratulating him with great candour and cordiality uponhis approaching nuptials with Miss O'Dowd. "Your sister has justkindly visited me," Amelia wrote in her letter, "and informed me ofan INTERESTING EVENT, upon which I beg to offer my MOST SINCERECONGRATULATIONS. I hope the young lady to whom I hear you are to beUNITED will in every respect prove worthy of one who is himself allkindness and goodness. The poor widow has only her prayers to offerand her cordial cordial wishes for YOUR PROSPERITY! Georgy sendshis love to HIS DEAR GODPAPA and hopes that you will not forget him.I tell him that you are about to form OTHER TIES, with one who I amsure merits ALL YOUR AFFECTION, but that, although such ties must ofcourse be the strongest and most sacred, and supersede ALL OTHERS,yet that I am sure the widow and the child whom you have everprotected and loved will always HAVE A CORNER IN YOUR HEART" Theletter, which has been before alluded to, went on in this strain,protesting throughout as to the extreme satisfaction of the writer.

This letter, .which arrived by the very same ship which brought outLady O'Dowd's box of millinery from London (and which you may besure Dobbin opened before any one of the other packets which themail brought him), put the receiver into such a state of mind thatGlorvina, and her pink satin, and everything belonging to her becameperfectly odious to him. The Major cursed the talk of women, andthe sex in general. Everything annoyed him that day--the parade wasinsufferably hot and wearisome. Good heavens! was a man ofintellect to waste his life, day after day, inspecting cross-beltsand putting fools through their manoeuvres? The senseless chatter ofthe young men at mess was more than ever jarring. What cared he, aman on the high road to forty, to know how many snipes LieutenantSmith had shot, or what were the performances of Ensign Brown'smare? The jokes about the table filled him with shame. He was tooold to listen to the banter of the assistant surgeon and the slangof the youngsters, at which old O'Dowd, with his bald head and redface, laughed quite easily. The old man had listened to those jokesany time these thirty years--Dobbin himself had been fifteen yearshearing them. And after the boisterous dulness of the mess-table,the quarrels and scandal of the ladies of the regiment! It wasunbearable, shameful. "O Amelia, Amelia," he thought, "you to whomI have been so faithful--you reproach me! It is because you cannotfeel for me that I drag on this wearisome life. And you reward meafter years of devotion by giving me your blessing upon my marriage,forsooth, with this flaunting Irish girl!" Sick and sorry felt poorWilliam; more than ever wretched and lonely. He would like to havedone with life and its vanity altogether--so bootless andunsatisfactory the struggle, so cheerless and dreary the prospectseemed to him. He lay all that night sleepless, and yearning to gohome. Amelia's letter had fallen as a blank upon him. No fidelity,no constant truth and passion, could move her into warmth. Shewould not see that he loved her. Tossing in his bed, he spoke outto her. "Good God, Amelia!" he said, "don't you know that I onlylove you in the world--you, who are a stone to me--you, whom Itended through months and months of illness and grief, and who bademe farewell with a smile on your face, and forgot me before the doorshut between us!" The native servants lying outside his verandasbeheld with wonder the Major, so cold and quiet ordinarily, atpresent so passionately moved and cast down. Would she have pitiedhim had she seen him? He read over and over all the letters which heever had from her--letters of business relative to the littleproperty which he had made her believe her husband had left to her--brief notes of invitation--every scrap of writing that she had eversent to him--how cold, how kind, how hopeless, how selfish theywere!

Had there been some kind gentle soul near at hand who could read andappreciate this silent generous heart, who knows but that the reignof Amelia might have been over, and that friend William's love mighthave flowed into a kinder channel? But there was only Glorvina ofthe jetty ringlets with whom his intercourse was familiar, and thisdashing young woman was not bent upon loving the Major, but ratheron making the Major admire HER--a most vain and hopeless task, too,at least considering the means that the poor girl possessed to carryit out. She curled her hair and showed her shoulders at him, asmuch as to say, did ye ever see such jet ringlets and such acomplexion? She grinned at him so that he might see that every toothin her head was sound--and he never heeded all these charms. Verysoon after the arrival of the box of millinery, and perhaps indeedin honour of it, Lady O'Dowd and the ladies of the King's Regimentgave a ball to the Company's Regiments and the civilians at thestation. Glorvina sported the killing pink frock, and the Major,who attended the party and walked very ruefully up and down therooms, never so much as perceived the pink garment. Glorvina dancedpast him in a fury with all the young subalterns of the station, andthe Major was not in the least jealous of her performance, or angrybecause Captain Bangles of the Cavalry handed her to supper. It wasnot jealousy, or frocks, or shoulders that could move him, andGlorvina had nothing more.

So these two were each exemplifying the Vanity of this life, andeach longing for what he or she could not get. Glorvina cried withrage at the failure. She had set her mind on the Major "more thanon any of the others," she owned, sobbing. "He'll break my heart,he will, Peggy," she would whimper to her sister-in-law when theywere good friends; "sure every one of me frocks must be taken in--it's such a skeleton I'm growing." Fat or thin, laughing ormelancholy, on horseback or the music-stool, it was all the same tothe Major. And the Colonel, puffing his pipe and listening to thesecomplaints, would suggest that Glory should have some black frocksout in the next box from London, and told a mysterious story of alady in Ireland who died of grief for the loss of her husband beforeshe got ere a one.

While the Major was going on in this tantalizing way, not proposing,and declining to fall in love, there came another ship from Europebringing letters on board, and amongst them some more for theheartless man. These were home letters bearing an earlier postmarkthan that of the former packets, and as Major Dobbin recognizedamong his the handwriting of his sister, who always crossed andrecrossed her letters to her brother--gathered together all thepossible bad news which she could collect, abused him and read himlectures with sisterly frankness, and always left him miserable forthe day after "dearest William" had achieved the perusal of one ofher epistles--the truth must be told that dearest William did nothurry himself to break the seal of Miss Dobbin's letter, but waitedfor a particularly favourable day and mood for doing so. Afortnight before, moreover, he had written to scold her for tellingthose absurd stories to Mrs. Osborne, and had despatched a letter inreply to that lady, undeceiving her with respect to the reportsconcerning him and assuring her that "he had no sort of presentintention of altering his condition."

Two or three nights after the arrival of the second package ofletters, the Major had passed the evening pretty cheerfully at LadyO'Dowd's house, where Glorvina thought that he listened with rathermore attention than usual to the Meeting of the Wathers, theMinsthrel Boy, and one or two other specimens of song with which shefavoured him (the truth is, he was no more listening to Glorvinathan to the howling of the jackals in the moonlight outside, and thedelusion was hers as usual), and having played his game at chesswith her (cribbage with the surgeon was Lady O'Dowd's favouriteevening pastime), Major Dobbin took leave of the Colonel's family athis usual hour and retired to his own house.

There on his table, his sister's letter lay reproaching him. Hetook it up, ashamed rather of his negligence regarding it, andprepared himself for a disagreeable hour's communing with thatcrabbed-handed absent relative. . . . It may have been an hourafter the Major's departure from the Colonel's house--Sir Michaelwas sleeping the sleep of the just; Glorvina had arranged her blackringlets in the innumerable little bits of paper, in which it washer habit to confine them; Lady O'Dowd, too, had gone to her bed inthe nuptial chamber, on the ground-floor, and had tucked hermusquito curtains round her fair form, when the guard at the gatesof the Commanding-Officer's compound beheld Major Dobbin, in themoonlight, rushing towards the house with a swift step and a veryagitated countenance, and he passed the sentinel and went up to thewindows of the Colonel's bedchamber.

"O'Dowd--Colonel!" said Dobbin and kept up a great shouting.

"Heavens, Meejor!" said Glorvina of the curl-papers, putting out herhead too, from her window.

"What is it, Dob, me boy?" said the Colonel, expecting there was afire in the station, or that the route had come from headquarters.

"I--I must have leave of absence. I must go to England--on the mosturgent private affairs," Dobbin said.

"I want to be off--now--to-night," Dobbin continued; and the Colonelgetting up, came out to parley with him.

In the postscript of Miss Dobbin's cross-letter, the Major had justcome upon a paragraph, to the following effect:--"I drove yesterdayto see your old ACQUAINTANCE, Mrs. Osborne. The wretched place theylive at, since they were bankrupts, you know--Mr. S., to judge froma BRASS PLATE on the door of his hut (it is little better) is acoal-merchant. The little boy, your godson, is certainly a finechild, though forward, and inclined to be saucy and self-willed.But we have taken notice of him as you wish it, and have introducedhim to his aunt, Miss O., who was rather pleased with him. Perhapshis grandpapa, not the bankrupt one, who is almost doting, but Mr.Osborne, of Russell Square, may be induced to relent towards thechild of your friend, HIS ERRING AND SELF-WILLED SON. And Ameliawill not be ill-disposed to give him up. The widow is CONSOLED, andis about to marry a reverend gentleman, the Rev. Mr. Binny, one ofthe curates of Brompton. A poor match. But Mrs. O. is getting old,and I saw a great deal of grey in her hair--she was in very goodspirits: and your little godson overate himself at our house.Mamma sends her love with that of your affectionate, Ann Dobbin."

CHAPTER XLIV

A Round-about Chapter between London and Hampshire

Our old friends the Crawleys' family house, in Great Gaunt Street,still bore over its front the hatchment which had been placed thereas a token of mourning for Sir Pitt Crawley's demise, yet thisheraldic emblem was in itself a very splendid and gaudy piece offurniture, and all the rest of the mansion became more brilliantthan it had ever been during the late baronet's reign. The blackouter-coating of the bricks was removed, and they appeared with acheerful, blushing face streaked with white: the old bronze lions ofthe knocker were gilt handsomely, the railings painted, and thedismallest house in Great Gaunt Street became the smartest in thewhole quarter, before the green leaves in Hampshire had replacedthose yellowing ones which were on the trees in Queen's CrawleyAvenue when old Sir Pitt Crawley passed under them for the lasttime.

A little woman, with a carriage to correspond, was perpetually seenabout this mansion; an elderly spinster, accompanied by a littleboy, also might be remarked coming thither daily. It was MissBriggs and little Rawdon, whose business it was to see to the inwardrenovation of Sir Pitt's house, to superintend the female bandengaged in stitching the blinds and hangings, to poke and rummage inthe drawers and cupboards crammed with the dirty relics andcongregated trumperies of a couple of generations of Lady Crawleys,and to take inventories of the china, the glass, and otherproperties in the closets and store-rooms.

Mrs. Rawdon Crawley was general-in-chief over these arrangements,with full orders from Sir Pitt to sell, barter, confiscate, orpurchase furniture, and she enjoyed herself not a little in anoccupation which gave full scope to her taste and ingenuity. Therenovation of the house was determined upon when Sir Pitt came totown in November to see his lawyers, and when he passed nearly aweek in Curzon Street, under the roof of his affectionate brotherand sister.

He had put up at an hotel at first, but, Becky, as soon as she heardof the Baronet's arrival, went off alone to greet him, and returnedin an hour to Curzon Street with Sir Pitt in the carriage by herside. It was impossible sometimes to resist this artless littlecreature's hospitalities, so kindly were they pressed, so franklyand amiably offered. Becky seized Pitt's hand in a transport ofgratitude when he agreed to come. "Thank you," she said, squeezingit and looking into the Baronet's eyes, who blushed a good deal;"how happy this will make Rawdon!" She bustled up to Pitt's bedroom,leading on the servants, who were carrying his trunks thither. Shecame in herself laughing, with a coal-scuttle out of her own room.

A fire was blazing already in Sir Pitt's apartment (it was MissBriggs's room, by the way, who was sent upstairs to sleep with themaid). "I knew I should bring you," she said with pleasure beamingin her glance. Indeed, she was really sincerely happy at having himfor a guest.

Becky made Rawdon dine out once or twice on business, while Pittstayed with them, and the Baronet passed the happy evening alonewith her and Briggs. She went downstairs to the kitchen andactually cooked little dishes for him. "Isn't it a good salmi?" shesaid; "I made it for you. I can make you better dishes than that,and will when you come to see me."

"Everything you do, you do well," said the Baronet gallantly. "Thesalmi is excellent indeed."

"A poor man's wife," Rebecca replied gaily, "must make herselfuseful, you know"; on which her brother-in-law vowed that "she wasfit to be the wife of an Emperor, and that to be skilful in domesticduties was surely one of the most charming of woman's qualities."And Sir Pitt thought, with something like mortification, of LadyJane at home, and of a certain pie which she had insisted on making,and serving to him at dinner--a most abominable pie.

Besides the salmi, which was made of Lord Steyne's pheasants fromhis lordship's cottage of Stillbrook, Becky gave her brother-in-lawa bottle of white wine, some that Rawdon had brought with him fromFrance, and had picked up for nothing, the little story-teller said;whereas the liquor was, in truth, some White Hermitage from theMarquis of Steyne's famous cellars, which brought fire into theBaronet's pallid cheeks and a glow into his feeble frame.

Then when he had drunk up the bottle of petit vin blanc, she gavehim her hand, and took him up to the drawing-room, and made him snugon the sofa by the fire, and let him talk as she listened with thetenderest kindly interest, sitting by him, and hemming a shirt forher dear little boy. Whenever Mrs. Rawdon wished to be particularlyhumble and virtuous, this little shirt used to come out of her work-box. It had got to be too small for Rawdon long before it wasfinished.

Well, Rebecca listened to Pitt, she talked to him, she sang to him,she coaxed him, and cuddled him, so that he found himself more andmore glad every day to get back from the lawyer's at Gray's Inn, tothe blazing fire in Curzon Street--a gladness in which the men oflaw likewise participated, for Pitt's harangues were of the longest--and so that when he went away he felt quite a pang at departing.How pretty she looked kissing her hand to him from the carriage andwaving her handkerchief when he had taken his place in the mail!She put the handkerchief to her eyes once. He pulled his sealskincap over his, as the coach drove away, and, sinking back, he thoughtto himself how she respected him and how he deserved it, and howRawdon was a foolish dull fellow who didn't half-appreciate hiswife; and how mum and stupid his own wife was compared to thatbrilliant little Becky. Becky had hinted every one of these thingsherself, perhaps, but so delicately and gently that you hardly knewwhen or where. And, before they parted, it was agreed that thehouse in London should be redecorated for the next season, and thatthe brothers' families should meet again in the country atChristmas.

"I wish you could have got a little money out of him," Rawdon saidto his wife moodily when the Baronet was gone. "I should like togive something to old Raggles, hanged if I shouldn't. It ain'tright, you know, that the old fellow should be kept out of all hismoney. It may be inconvenient, and he might let to somebody elsebesides us, you know."

"Tell him," said Becky, "that as soon as Sir Pitt's affairs aresettled, everybody will be paid, and give him a little something onaccount. Here's a cheque that Pitt left for the boy," and she tookfrom her bag and gave her husband a paper which his brother hadhanded over to her, on behalf of the little son and heir of theyounger branch of the Crawleys.

The truth is, she had tried personally the ground on which herhusband expressed a wish that she should venture--tried it ever sodelicately, and found it unsafe. Even at a hint aboutembarrassments, Sir Pitt Crawley was off and alarmed. And he begana long speech, explaining how straitened he himself was in moneymatters; how the tenants would not pay; how his father's affairs,and the expenses attendant upon the demise of the old gentleman, hadinvolved him; how he wanted to pay off incumbrances; and how thebankers and agents were overdrawn; and Pitt Crawley ended by makinga compromise with his sister-in-law and giving her a very small sumfor the benefit of her little boy.

Pitt knew how poor his brother and his brother's family must be. Itcould not have escaped the notice of such a cool and experienced olddiplomatist that Rawdon's family had nothing to live upon, and thathouses and carriages are not to be kept for nothing. He knew verywell that he was the proprietor or appropriator of the money, which,according to all proper calculation, ought to have fallen to hisyounger brother, and he had, we may be sure, some secret pangs ofremorse within him, which warned him that he ought to perform someact of justice, or, let us say, compensation, towards thesedisappointed relations. A just, decent man, not without brains, whosaid his prayers, and knew his catechism, and did his duty outwardlythrough life, he could not be otherwise than aware that somethingwas due to his brother at his hands, and that morally he wasRawdon's debtor.

But, as one reads in the columns of the Times newspaper every nowand then, queer announcements from the Chancellor of the Exchequer,acknowledging the receipt of 50 pounds from A. B., or 10 poundsfrom W. T., as conscience-money, on account of taxes due by thesaid A. B. or W. T., which payments the penitents beg the RightHonourable gentleman to acknowledge through the medium of the publicpress--so is the Chancellor no doubt, and the reader likewise,always perfectly sure that the above-named A. B. and W. T. areonly paying a very small instalment of what they really owe, andthat the man who sends up a twenty-pound note has very likelyhundreds or thousands more for which he ought to account. Such, atleast, are my feelings, when I see A. B. or W. T.'s insufficientacts of repentance. And I have no doubt that Pitt Crawley'scontrition, or kindness if you will, towards his younger brother, bywhom he had so much profited, was only a very small dividend uponthe capital sum in which he was indebted to Rawdon. Not everybody iswilling to pay even so much. To part with money is a sacrificebeyond almost all men endowed with a sense of order. There isscarcely any man alive who does not think himself meritorious forgiving his neighbour five pounds. Thriftless gives, not from abeneficent pleasure in giving, but from a lazy delight in spending.He would not deny himself one enjoyment; not his opera-stall, nothis horse, not his dinner, not even the pleasure of giving Lazarusthe five pounds. Thrifty, who is good, wise, just, and owes no mana penny, turns from a beggar, haggles with a hackney-coachman, ordenies a poor relation, and I doubt which is the most selfish of thetwo. Money has only a different value in the eyes of each.

So, in a word, Pitt Crawley thought he would do something for hisbrother, and then thought that he would think about it some othertime.

And with regard to Becky, she was not a woman who expected too muchfrom the generosity of her neighbours, and so was quite content withall that Pitt Crawley had done for her. She was acknowledged by thehead of the family. If Pitt would not give her anything, he wouldget something for her some day. If she got no money from herbrother-in-law, she got what was as good as money--credit. Raggleswas made rather easy in his mind by the spectacle of the unionbetween the brothers, by a small payment on the spot, and by thepromise of a much larger sum speedily to be assigned to him. AndRebecca told Miss Briggs, whose Christmas dividend upon the littlesum lent by her Becky paid with an air of candid joy, and as if herexchequer was brimming over with gold--Rebecca, we say, told MissBriggs, in strict confidence that she had conferred with Sir Pitt,who was famous as a financier, on Briggs's special behalf, as to themost profitable investment of Miss B.'s remaining capital; that SirPitt, after much consideration, had thought of a most safe andadvantageous way in which Briggs could lay out her money; that,being especially interested in her as an attached friend of the lateMiss Crawley, and of the whole family, and that long before he lefttown, he had recommended that she should be ready with the money ata moment's notice, so as to purchase at the most favourableopportunity the shares which Sir Pitt had in his eye. Poor MissBriggs was very grateful for this mark of Sir Pitt's attention--itcame so unsolicited, she said, for she never should have thought ofremoving the money from the funds--and the delicacy enhanced thekindness of the office; and she promised to see her man of businessimmediately and be ready with her little cash at the proper hour.

And this worthy woman was so grateful for the kindness of Rebecca inthe matter, and for that of her generous benefactor, the Colonel,that she went out and spent a great part of her half-year's dividendin the purchase of a black velvet coat for little Rawdon, who, bythe way, was grown almost too big for black velvet now, and was of asize and age befitting him for the assumption of the virile jacketand pantaloons.

He was a fine open-faced boy, with blue eyes and waving flaxen hair,sturdy in limb, but generous and soft in heart, fondly attachinghimself to all who were good to him--to the pony--to Lord Southdown,who gave him the horse (he used to blush and glow all over when hesaw that kind young nobleman)--to the groom who had charge of thepony--to Molly, the cook, who crammed him with ghost stories atnight, and with good things from the dinner--to Briggs, whom heplagued and laughed at--and to his father especially, whoseattachment towards the lad was curious too to witness. Here, as hegrew to be about eight years old, his attachments may be said tohave ended. The beautiful mother-vision had faded away after awhile. During near two years she had scarcely spoken to the child.She disliked him. He had the measles and the hooping-cough. Hebored her. One day when he was standing at the landing-place,having crept down from the upper regions, attracted by the sound ofhis mother's voice, who was singing to Lord Steyne, the drawing roomdoor opening suddenly, discovered the little spy, who but a momentbefore had been rapt in delight, and listening to the music.

His mother came out and struck him violently a couple of boxes onthe ear. He heard a laugh from the Marquis in the inner room (whowas amused by this free and artless exhibition of Becky's temper)and fled down below to his friends of the kitchen, bursting in anagony of grief.

"It is not because it hurts me," little Rawdon gasped out--"only--only"--sobs and tears wound up the sentence in a storm. It was thelittle boy's heart that was bleeding. "Why mayn't I hear hersinging? Why don't she ever sing to me--as she does to thatbaldheaded man with the large teeth?" He gasped out at various